CHAPTER III.

THE HOUSE ON THE MARSH.

THE quaint old market-place had been built on the highest point of Marshton, which was situated itself on what might be termed a huge hillock rising out of the low-lying surrounding marshlands. It had only one long irregular street, which ran over this hillock, beginning at the shore on one side, and coming back to it on the other. All the houses were old, and most of them had gables projecting from the upper storeys over the rough stony pavement. They were quartered with massive oak timber, each house after a different design, as though the inmates had sought to please and suit their own individual tastes. They were mostly very well built, comfortable and warm—an important consideration, lying as the town did exposed to the strong winds from all sides. In a line along the water's edge were more imposing

edifices, a few fine large houses, some warehouses and wharves. These had originally been the dwellings and houses of business of Dutch merchants, for a number of these had settled in the ancient fishing-town of Marshton.

In Holland, as Sir William Temple states in his 'Miscellanea,' published in the seventeenth century, there had, up to this time, been "above thirty acts of state bearing on the curing, salting, and barrelling of herrings alone, with such severity in the imposition and execution and penalties that the business grew to be managed with habitual skill, care, and honesty, so that there was hardly any example of failing in that line."

The Dutch emigrants brought with them a better system of fishing than had been practised before on our coast. They it was also who built most of the massive sea-wall, and constructed the noted duck decoy near Marshton, of which the folks were justly proud; and where only bare hillocks, swamps, and tide-worn gullies had been, they made wide and fertile grazing-grounds for their cattle. Being so used to flat swampy land in their own country, they took naturally to our marshlands.

In a monograph on the state of Holland, Sir William says further, "that the benefit of their situation and orders of their Government, the conduct of their ministers driving on steddy and pub

lick interest-the art industry and parsimony of

their people, all conspired to drive almost the trade of the whole world into their circle, while their neighbours were taken up either in civil or foreign wars."

All religions were tolerated in Holland at the time we allude to, and the Government offered a safe refuge to the persecuted. Owing to the consequent increase of population, as well as to their enterprise and industry, the Dutch were driven to seek employment beyond their own seas. Having to be on perpetual defence against the tyranny and encroachments of Spain, and obliged to combat her fleets, they became first-class sailors and energetic successful merchants, visiting every accessible port, and establishing houses of business wherever they could. Painstaking and industrious as they were, smaller profits satisfied the Dutch than were looked for by others.

A colony of French Huguenots had also settled round Marshton about the same time. Local traditions told how many of them arrived in sad plight, the fathers carrying their delicate wives and daughters in an exhausted condition through the mud and water, the young men bearing the little children in their arms, to find a resting-place on these sand links and barren flats. Although the Huguenot families settled down at first content

edly, satisfied to be quiet and at rest from the persecution of their religious tyrants, in spite of the barrenness of their surroundings and hard days of toil with small recompense, there were amongst them many men skilled in fine arts and industries, who, after leaving their mark on the district, moved on towards London to find a wider field for their skill and their energies. But when Denzil was a boy there were still some direct descendants of the old Huguenot families to be found amongst the populations of Marshton and in the neighbouring hamlets. They had intermarried, some of them, with the native fishing families. Many of the names, both Christian and surnames, bore witness to this foreign element in the population, and many of their expressions too. For instance, if a boy were speaking of a bird's nest, he would say more often than not, "She nides there.”

Philip Magnier, Denzil's father, was one of these direct descendants of the old Huguenot immigrants. Although he was, technically speaking, a workman of the more skilled sort, yet he was a genius in his own way. He had an inborn love of art, which had worried and harassed him, because it had never found the opportunity of full, or even partial, satisfaction in his daily life. His house stood outside the town; it was the last one on the marsh road. Like all the other houses on the flats, it

was low and solidly built, so as to stand firm against the gales that roared over the marshes at times, clearing all before them. Poplars were the only trees that grew on these flats; there were great walnut-trees in the old parish churchyard, and near the church some elms, in which was a noted old rookery. But on the flats proper only poplars could exist: these certainly grew there to perfection, however. In front of Philip Magnier's house was a row of them, beside a stream that flowed into the marsh. Beyond the poplars only a lonely farm was to be seen in the way of building or human habitation. The house was not more lonely than most of the marshland homesteads, and it could boast of a larger and more productive garden behind it than was common in that locality. This ran through a portion of reclaimed swamp, and was protected at its farther end by a thick old hedge separating it from the saltings.

There was nothing to be seen from the house all the day long, except the sea, the marsh, and the sky; nothing to be heard but the sound of the waves and the song of the birds, with the cries of the sea-fowl and other wild creatures that had their nomes in or about the flats. No wonder the Magniers were a grave and silent family. Setting aside their father's inherited ways of thought and stern prejudice, they had never been one with the towns